


apparition in red

by lokidreamsinbw



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, IW SPOILERS, M/M, after six months loki finally shows himself to a grieving thor, and bring him back, love's heart never gives out, phantom limb phenomena, post IW, thor sees loki with his missing eye, thor wants to follow loki to the underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 12:05:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14618145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokidreamsinbw/pseuds/lokidreamsinbw
Summary: Thor's left eye sees in color.If he puts his hand over it, his right eye sees in red. It sees blurry and jumpy. It sees more light than shadow. It sees his dead brother.





	apparition in red

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr prompt fill for "I'm still here."  
> Post IW so spoilers ahead.

They say you lose a limb, you still feel it there. If you touch it, it tickles. If the weather is bad, it aches. If you sit down for too long it falls asleep. Phantom limb, they call it. It’s in the medical books. And if it’s there, it means you’re not going crazy, it’s a real thing, not just in your head.

They don’t teach you about phantom limbs on Asgard. It’s something Thor finds out about on his own.

His right eye, it feels like it never left its socket. The socket feels full. When he moves his left eye, the right eye follows—he can feel the tug on the muscles building up a dull ache between his brows. It itches. When soap gets into it, it stings bad. When the sun is too bright, the pupil that’s not there anymore constricts immediately.

His left eye sees in color.

If he puts his hand over it, his right eye sees in red. It sees blurry and jumpy. It sees more light than shadow. It sees his dead brother.

It first happens when he’s walking by a field somewhere in Texas.

After Loki died, Thor grieved alone. It was anger, extreme, directed at himself for not being strong enough to keep Thanos from snapping Loki’s neck in the lonesome silence of outer space. It wasn’t tears then, it was numbness. He felt hollow. So the Midgardian skies flashed with enormous lightning bolts but no rain came. It hasn’t rained in six months and the earth was drying up like a fig left out in the sun.

Walking through an abandoned farm in Texas, Thor makes it rain. Tears and sweet water falling onto the dry grass.

He wipes at his left eye. Shuts it tight. With his right, the trees and creaking farmhouse turn red, the image shaking lightly.

And then, Loki. Sitting on a wooden box, eyes closed, head tilted back to catch the rain on his lids, in his mouth.

Shocked, Thor’s left eye flies open.

All the red is gone at once.

Loki is gone too.

The wooden box stands empty in a puddle of softening mud. The pines shiver—ghostly green. The house groans in the wind—egg yolk-yellow. Everything is in color again and his brother isn’t there.

Thor breathes out Loki’s name. In the falling rain he calls for him. And when he blinks the cold droplets from his eyes—faint flashes of red once more, the blurry outline of a pair of shoes by the box.

A bony hand comes up to cover an eye that’s not there—Loki showing Thor what to do so he can see him again in between wet blinks.

Thor covers his left eye and Loki brings his own hand down, gives him a smile Thor knows well. One of Loki’s sorrowful smiles.

“No.”

Thor’s missing eye stings. The socket is healing, pink flesh and grey bone. He never wears his eye patch anymore.

The rain starts coming down harder with Thor’s growing sense of sadness, making Loki’s hair stick to the sides of his neck. Loki is still wearing his space gear, soft leather. There’s metal dust still in his hair from the shattered ship.

Thor returns Loki’s sad smile.

“A trick,” Thor says to him, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye, “not yours this time, though.”

Loki holds his gaze, chin sticking out, a challenge, “whose then.”

“This dead thing.”

Thor puts his hand over his heart.

Loki shakes his head.

He stands up; starts walking towards him and Thor finds himself stepping back.

Loki stops and frowns.

Thor digs his heels in and the next time Loki starts moving closer, he stays put.

“Stop.”

A soft blink, “why.”

Thor spreads his fingers, dilated pupil peeking from between them.

With his left eye uncovered, Loki vanishes in mid-step.

It’s grey skies and yellow fields again.

Thor’s eye jumps around, lashes wet and sticky, panicking.

He brings his fingers together again.

Darkness falls over his eye and Loki reaches for him with his right hand, so close.

Thor uncovers his eye.

Loki disappears.

“Because if you get any closer, I’ll reach for you,” he says.

Thor waits. The rain soaks through his jeans and coat and he’s shivering.

The longing is too great and Thor covers his eye again.

Loki stands before him, arms hanging by his sides, shoulders slumped.

Thor takes a shaky breath in, gaze moving sadly over his brother’s face.

“And you won’t be here,” he says, “my hands will pass right through you.”

Loki gives him a challenging look and takes one step forward.

Gently, he covers Thor’s hand, the one that’s cupped over his eye, with his. His hand feels cold and bony; a hand Thor has kissed a thousand times in the dark.

Loki tugs on Thor’s hand.

Together they uncover his eye.

Thor stares at the field. Once, it was full of sunflowers. Now, all there’s left is broken stems and torn petals.

Thor clenches his hand into a fist over his eye.

There’s Loki cupping his face with both hands.

“I’m still here,” Loki says.

Thor drops to his knees, left eye squeezed shut. He hugs Loki’s waist, presses his face to his ribcage.

The rain falls down red all around them and Loki’s hands come up to stroke Thor’s hair.

“ _‘go away’_ ,” Loki says and Thor feels Loki’s voice seeping into his bones and they gulp it down as if it were water, “that’s what you used to say to me, remember? I’d walk into your chambers. Pull a trick on you. _‘go away’_ you’d shout, _‘go away and never come back’_.”

“Stop.”

Loki’s hands combing Thor’s hair back, thumb softly caressing a bulging vein in his forehead, “wishes do come true, apparently. Our entire childhood you wished me gone, and now you want me back.”

Loki’s hand pauses to rest close to Thor’s temple.

He’s silent for a while, his hand still.

Then he rakes his fingers through Thor’s hair until he reaches the side of his head and he tucks a strand behind Thor’s ear.

“Some things are gone forever. It’s the course of nature, brother. All things most die.”

Thor clenches his fingers in the leather at Loki’s back, grabbing fistfuls of it,“not you. You can’t.”

“Me, especially,” Loki cradles the back of Thor’s neck, “I am nothing but a magic trick. All illusions lose their luster. All they leave behind is a bitter taste of disappointment in the viewer’s heart.”

Thor pulls his head back to look Loki in the eye, “no, you died a hero.”

Loki shakes his head, “I died in your arms with your tears on my face. Something I didn’t deserve.”

“Don’t say that.”

Thor grabs Loki’s hands. They are cold in his.

“You punished me,” he says to Loki accusingly, “you stayed away all this time. For the way I’ve treated you. And you continue to do so. You won’t call for me to look for you in the underworld. You will not allow me to.”

“It is not you that I punish,” Loki says, “I punish myself. For all the wrong that I’ve done to you. Dear brother, you’ve shown me nothing but love. All I did in return was make you bleed.”

Loki smiles at him sadly, “for this, I will forever be an apparition in red.”

“A shadow in your line of vision,” he adds, wiping the tears and rain from Thor’s face.

Thor grabs at Loki’s wrists, voice hoarse, “say my name in the shadows of the underworld. Call for me. Loki, let me find you. Let me bring you back to me.”

Loki moves his thumb over Thor’s mouth and when he speaks it’s so quiet Thor barely hears it over the sound of thunder and rain.

“Perhaps,” he says, “one day.”

Thor opens his eye.

The socket is filled with blood.


End file.
